Friday evening, I raced from work straight over to the car rental place, locked up the Jolly Roger, and drove the car home to meet up with my friend S, visiting from Georgia. I immediately put her to work making "Big-ass Salads" for dinner, and we also cooked up a batch of hummus and custard for vanilla ice cream. I extended the food ridiculousness to the following morning by making a batch of lemon-ricotta pancakes, which have the fantastic property of seeming like light, fluffy clouds while being high in protein. And delicious.

From there, we drove on down to Big Basin State Park, where we hiked through the redwoods (tra la) and had a picnic alongside a stagnant stream. Redwoods have an interesting fragrance. It was warm but not uncomfortably so. We also saw a salamander thanks to S's keen powers of observation. We had to head back to town at 2 pm so I could go to the lab for my daily cricket duties. The evening featured more feasting and a much-anticipated game of Scrabble, which scrottie won handily, thanks in good part to a bingo on his first turn.

Sunday, I dropped off the rental car and retrieved the Jolly Roger, which was fortunately still right where I had locked it up. Then we expeditioned to San Francisco, first for a taste of the Pride Parade (crowded), then to taste the aforementioned hot butterscotch (delicious), then to acquire pirate supplies, and then to ride around on a Surrey in Golden Gate Park. The surrey was highly entertaining, between myself and scrottie trying to gun it (oof, heavy gearing!), L playing the concertina, and S menacing the crowds with my newly-acquired wooden cutlass. L wishes to buy or make a surrey.

Getting back to the lab was stressful. Downtown SF was still full of marauding Prideful crowds and associated litter, and our bus broke down on the way back to the BART station. But I got my work done (barely, and late).

I'm uncertain about the best way to interact with the Pride parade here. Large hordes really aren't my thing. They fill me with a sense of despair. I am mostly interested in the "Yay, you do you!" artsy aspect of things and people feeling welcomed and accepted and supported for being who they are. That vibe was present but not necessarily predominant. Ah well.

The adventures also reinforced my sense that I would be perfectly all right living in a less attraction-heavy region. I'm probably just turning into a grumpy recluse.